Steering his career goals four years ago toward law enforcement — maybe even in the CIA — or school administration seemed ideal to Ty Outlaw. He didn’t exactly know what his next move would entail, but he was sure his basketball-playing days were over.

He was wrong, and he’s glad he was.

Making it to Senior Night as a sharp-shooting mainstay for No. 15 Virginia Tech (22-7, 11-6 ACC) seemed like an impossibility in 2015. A heart condition that threatened to end his Hokies career before it began ultimately served as just another detour in Outlaw’s long journey — and transformation as a player — to Tech’s final home game Friday night against Miami (13-16, 5-12).

“I know for a fact what it feels like to not be on the court with my teammates, so I never take anything for granted,” said Outlaw, who bounced back from the heart condition that robbed him of his ’15-16 season, only to have last season taken from him because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee. “I’m just grateful to be out there, because it could easily be the other way around.”

Despite the hurdles he’s had to clear, Outlaw has carved out a reputation as one of the most deadly 3-point shooters in the ACC. It’s an unlikely career track for a guy who never really envisioned himself draining 3s with regularity as a kid.

He doesn’t have enough 3-point attempts this season to qualify among the leaders in the conference. If he did, his 45.8 percent shooting (66 of 144) from beyond the 3-point line would put him second in the ACC.

In two seasons at Tech, he’s made 47.1 percent of his 3s (123 of 261), including an extraordinary eight-game stretch at the end of the ’16-17 season when he made 64 percent (32 of 50).

Transformation at Lee

Growing up as a Duke fan in tiny Roxboro, N.C., just 30 miles north of Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, Outlaw fancied himself grabbing rebounds and scoring on vicious dunks for the Blue Devils. The problem was Duke couldn’t have cared less about him as a recruit at Person County High, where he averaged 24 points and 12 rebounds as a 6-foot-6 senior.

That’s right — Outlaw was once destined to be an undersized low-post banger, at least in his mind. Not until he transferred to Lee College, a junior college in Baytown, Texas, after an unsatisfying freshman season at UNC Greensboro, where he averaged 5.4 points and 2.1 rebounds per contest in 30 games, did Outlaw begin to morph into a perimeter shooter.

Lee assistant coach Marcus King had other designs for Outlaw’s basketball career, but King knew Outlaw was a work in progress.

“It was love-hate,” said King, who just finished his 11th season as an assistant coach at Lee. “He hated me before he loved me. I saw that he could be something more than just this guy who came (to Lee) and wasn’t a (power forward). I used to tell him all the time, ‘You’re not a (power forward). You can shoot the ball. Now, physically, you can do some things, but you’re not a (power forward). If you ever want to make money playing this game, you’re not going to do it as a (power forward).’ I demanded a lot from him, probably too much, but he bought in and it worked out.”

King pushed Outlaw’s limits. Four-a-day offseason workouts beginning with 5-8 a.m. sessions gave Outlaw a taste of what it would take to get to where he wanted, but even more was heaped on his plate.

“I used to work out once a day,” said Outlaw, who will participate in Senior Night festivities along with fellow seniors Ahmed Hill and Justin Robinson (who has missed Tech’s last nine games with a foot injury). “(King would) be like, ‘Do you think that’s enough?’ That surprised me. … He said, ‘You’re not at your dream college. You’re not in the ACC. You’re not at some big-time school. You have more time. Why don’t you work out again?’ That’s when it really hit me that hunger is a real thing, and hunger isn’t easily satisfied.”

His immersive training, with a focus on becoming a perimeter shooter, paid off.

Path to Blacksburg

King was friends with former Tech assistant coach Steve Roccaforte. When King told Roccaforte about Outlaw, who averaged 21.8 points per game in his season at Lee, a path to the ACC started to open up.

On Tech’s campus for his first visit, Outlaw shook Williams’ hand and looked him straight in the eye. It made an impression on Williams.

“He said he’d never seen me play before, but he knew his assistants had and he trusted them,” Outlaw said. “When we met, there were four recruits there, including me. He told Coach (Roccaforte) he wanted me just from that meeting. (Williams) told me I was the only one who paid full attention, looked him in his eyes and shook his hand strong. That stuff matters to him.”

A personality test Williams took along with his players, assistant coaches and staff support personnel before what would’ve been Outlaw’s first season at Tech formed an even stronger bond between Williams and Outlaw. Williams, Outlaw and Lyle Wolf, who at the time was Tech’s director of student-athlete development and is now the Hokies’ director of basketball operations, were the only people associated with the team to register rare “dominant” personalities.

“Buzz is abrasive sometimes,” Outlaw said. “He can intimidate some people or rub some people the wrong way, but me and him are kindred spirits. We’re short-and-to-the-point, say what you mean, don’t beat around the bush.”

During his first experience with Williams’ preseason “boot camp,” Outlaw had a tough time recovering after drills. Tech knew about a septal defect Outlaw was born with that caused a murmur, along with his high blood pressure, but his struggles in the preseason, along with a diagnosis of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (thickening of a portion of the heart), were enough to shut him down for the ’15-16 season.

“I didn’t even really want to touch a basketball at that point,” Outlaw said. “It’s a love that I have, but you don’t want to keep teasing yourself with that love if you’re not going to get to play again.

“I just wanted to focus on school and get ready for the next chapter in my life. I felt like basketball was going to end. I just wanted to (move on) before they told me I couldn’t play, so it would never be real to me. My mom is the one who talked me out of thinking that way.”

The recoveries

As a nurse, Patricia Bumphus, Outlaw’s mom, worked with cardiologists and wasn’t intimidated by the terminology. She listened to him talk about planning for careers outside of basketball as he looked beyond the game, but she also wanted to keep him optimistic about his future on the basketball court.

“I kept telling him it’s not over until someone says it’s over,” said Bumphus, who moved to Blacksburg at Outlaw’s request for this final season of his college career. “No one had ever said that. I went over the positives and the negatives of the process. … They told him they didn’t even want him to sweat. Looking at a child that had been active his whole life, I know that was torture for him.”

Outlaw was cleared to play before the start of the ’16-17 season. He ended up averaging 6.3 points per game that season, starting 14 of the last 16 games after wing Chris Clarke went down with a knee injury.

With Outlaw’s reputation as an outstanding 3-point shooter established, he confidently prepared for what was going to be his senior season last year. A torn ACL suffered in a July 2017 pickup game derailed his plans.

He rehabbed and was granted a medical hardship waiver by the NCAA, giving him a sixth season of eligibility. With his knee back to 100 percent, he’s averaging 8.4 points and 5.1 rebounds per game this season, while starting 14 times.

“If I learned anything from my ACL injury, it’s that something like that can happen at any moment in the weirdest of ways,” Outlaw said.

King and Bumphus both plan to be in Cassell Coliseum on Friday night to celebrate Senior Night with Outlaw, but he’s made Senior Night a much lengthier experience. He’s earned it.

“This whole year, I’ve been treating it like it was Senior Night, because I’ve had to wait so long for my own Senior Night,” Outlaw said. “I didn’t think I’d make it to here. I’ve been super-grateful for every game I’ve played in this year, and stayed healthy.”